- Mark Hofmann: As far back as I can remember, I have liked to impress people through my deceptions. Fooling people gave me a sense of power and superiority. When I was about 12 years old, I began collecting coins. Soon afterwards, I figured out some crude ways to fool other collectors by altering coins and make them appear more desirable. By the time I was 14, I had developed a forgery technique which I felt was undetectable. Anyway, it ended up going to the Treasury Department where it was pronounced genuine. In my view, if the Treasury Department pronounces it genuine, then it is genuine by definition. It's not so much what is genuine and what isn't, as what people believe is genuine.